The approaches described in this section could be pursued, but are not necessarily approaches that have been previously conceived or pursued. Therefore, unless otherwise indicated herein, the approaches described in this section are not prior art to the claims in this application and are not admitted to be prior art by inclusion in this section.
In computer networks such as the Internet, packets of data are sent from a source to a destination via a network of elements including links (communication paths such as telephone or optical lines) and nodes (usually routers directing the packet along one or more of a plurality of links connected to it) according to one of various routing protocols.
One such protocol is MPLS (Multi Protocol Label Switching). MPLS is a protocol that is well known to the skilled reader and which is described in document “Multi Protocol Label Switching Architecture” which is available at the time of writing on the file “rfc3031.txt” in the directory “rfc” of the domain “ietf.org” on the World Wide Web. According to MPLS, a complete path for a source-destination pair is established, and values required for forwarding a packet between adjacent routers in the path together with headers or “labels” are pre-pended to the packet. The labels are used to direct the packet to the correct interface and next hop. The labels precede the IP or other header allowing smaller outer headers.
The path for the source-destination pair, termed a Label Switched Path (LSP) can be established according to various different approaches. One such approach is Label Distribution Protocol (LDP) in which each router in the path sends its label to the next hop router on the path as determined from its IP routing table. Alternatively Resource Reservation Protocol (RSVP) can be invoked in which case, for example, a network administrator can engineer a path, providing strict source routing.
For each LSP created, a forwarding equivalent class (FEC) is associated with the path specifying which packets are mapped to it.
A problem in data communication networks arises upon de-activation of a network component such as a link or a node either by component failure or by planned down time. In either case there is a period of disruption to the delivery of traffic and packets for destinations which were previously reached by traversing the deactivated component may be dropped. In many time-critical applications it is not sufficient for the routers to converge on the adjusted network in a normal way as this takes too much time. Accordingly one known solution in MPLS networks is to pre-compute and pre-signal a repair path using RSVP methods. Such an approach can, however, require network administrator configuration of the repair paths.
An alternative approach is described in “ip/ldp local protection” which is available at the time of writing on the file “draft-atlas-ip-local-protect-00.txt” in the directory “pub/id” of the domain “watersprings.org” on the World Wide Web. According to the approach described in this document, a computing node computes both a “primary next-hop” for packets for a destination together with an “alternate next-hop”. The alternate next hop is used in the case of failure of the primary next hop (failure either of the next-hop node or the link to the next hop-node). The alternate next-hop can be another neighbor node whose own shortest path to the destination does not include the computing node. In another case the alternate next-hop is a “U-turn alternate” comprising a neighbor whose primary next hop is the computing node. And which has as its alternate next-hop a node whose shortest path does not include the computing node. However this approach can only redirect a packet over a maximum of two hops.